Our children will be Smart and Beautiful'
by Mrs Doctor Who 11
Summary: Leonard and Penny's life after they get together - other character storyline too - twist in the middle that takes it away from main characters, but it's mostly a LENNY story.xx


**Dont know whether to leave it as a Oneshot or continue as a short story. It does make a beautiful oneshot, but it's up to you reviewers - post your reviews on whether or not I should carry on and what you thought of it! :)**

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><p>Leonard stood in the hospital corridor, cradling his baby girl in his arms, grinning at the child's button nose and starfish fingers curling and uncurling as she slept.<p>

Sheldon got back from the cafeteria holding a cup of tea.

"Here." he tried to hand the tea to Leonard.

"Thanks Sheldon but I didn't ask for tea, I'm kinda busy holding little Leia here." Leonard smiled.

"So Penny finally caved and let you name your first child after a Star Wars character?" Sheldon asked.

"No, Penny's still asleep, and when I mentioned it she threw her slipper at me. She's kinda crabby. But she doesn't have to know that I call our baby that on the sly now, does she?" Leonard cooed as he stroked the baby's peachy cheek.

There was a short silence, and then: "She can't answer you, she's a baby." Sheldon informed him.

"I know that, I- Anyway, what's the tea for?" Leonard asked.

"Well, I noticed something as I passed the nursery on my way to the cafeteria which will probably distress you, and the social protocol states that a distressed friend requires a hot beverage." Sheldon said.

"What did you notice?" balancing Leia in one arm, Leonard took a sip of tea.

"You picked up the wrong baby." Sheldon said.

Tea spurted on the floor.

"What?" Leonard yelled.

"You are currently holding Esther Kogan. Your offspring is still in the nursery, and oh, look there's Mrs Kogan running angrily towards us."

"RUN!" Leonard yelled, dashing off down the corridor.

* * *

><p>Leonard opened the door to the apartment, exhausted from pressing his imaginary brake as Penny drove them back from the hospital, but glad to be home.<p>

"And here we are at home! This is the sitting room and that's Uncle Sheldon on the couch... labelling your toys, Sheldon!" Leonard said, making Sheldon jump and drop his label maker.

"Oh hello Leonard, Penny, Selena." Sheldon smiled scarily at them.

"Sheldon for the last time, we're not naming our daughter after Catwoman!" Leonard sighed, walking in and setting the carseat on the couch.

"Why not?" Sheldon asked.

"Because Penny won't let me." mumbled Leonard.

"Yep, no geeky names, no scientist dedications, just little Macy Sophia Hoffstadter!"Penny picked Macy out of the carseat.

"Why that name?" Sheldon inquired.

"It was my cousins name before she... before she..." Penny began.

"Died?" Sheldon asked.

"No, went to rehab, but we were really close! But now you mention it, she's been dead to me ever since she got out of rehab and stole my ex-boyfriend, God what a bitch!" Penny said angrily.

"Well I can certainly see why you named your first child after her. Bazinga!" Sheldon said sarcastically.

"And Sophia was the name of Leonard's cat when he was a kid." Penny said.

"I didn't have a cat when I was a kid." Leonard said confused.

"Yah, well maybe I made up that story coz I liked the name Sophia and I wanted people to think you were involved with the naming of our first child!" Penny said, exasperated.

"I was involved! I made suggestions!" Leonard protested.

"For the last time Leonard, neither this or any future child/ren we may have will EVER, in ANY universe be called Spock!" Penny said, hands on hips.

"Hey bestie!" Amy came out of the bathroom, her huge belly stretching the material of her shirt.

"Hi Amy, how are you doing?" Penny asked, going to the fridge to get a bottle.

"Relatively fine except for the violent morning sickness, backache and swollen limbs. It's just like the time my crazy Aunt Mabel cooked Thanksgiving dinner by feeding us the turkey and then instructing us to eat matches so it would 'cook in our bellies and save her some gas money'. Boy, that was the worst food poisoning I EVER had, but it gave me a chance to chart my bodily expulsion of fluids and how my temperature affected said outcome. Ah, youth!" Amy answered.

"Hey, Sheldon, what happened to all the milk I put in the fridge?" Penny asked.

"Someone drank it."

"Who?"

"Me."

"Sheldon, that was breast milk!" Penny laughed.

"WHAT?" Sheldon leaped up in horror.

"Why would you drink it anyway, it was in baby bottles?" Penny giggled.

"It was the middle of the night and I had a craving for milk and cookies and we were out of milk!" Sheldon wrung his hands.

"Well, apart from the grossness it should be fine, she'll just have to have the formula stuff for now." Penny said.

"Who cares about your stupid baby, I got ewy milk in my mouth!" Sheldon exclaimed, running from the apartment.

"He'll be fine later. Besides, he needs to be prepared - he'll be having a lot more than just 'ewy milk' on him soon! As I intend to work as soon as I give birth, he will be the one changing diapers and doing 'the three o clock feed'. An interesting fact about that, feeds are rarely done at 3am, recent surveys show that it is most common for feeds to be done at two, four and six o clock." Amy informed them.

"Interesting." Penny said, bored, feeding the formula to Macy.

"Excuse me, I have to go vomit again." Amy smiled.

Leonard waited until Amy left the room before whispering to Penny: "You think it's boring now, but imagine Sheldon changing a dirty diaper."

They both sniggered.

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><p>"Knock knock - Luke and Breha want to meet their new cousin!" Bernadette popped her head around the door.<p>

"Hey, come in!" Penny smiled; she was sat on the couch rocking Macy.

Leonard sat down next to Penny, taking Macy as Howard sat next to him, holding Luke.

After looking around furtively, Howard whispered to Leonard: "So, did you get Leia?"

"No." Leonard said disappointedly.

"Dammit! The only reason I didn't call Breha Leia is because you called dibs on it! Did you really try hard enough?" Howard said.

"As hard as the blow to the head I got when I carried on asking!" Leonard said.

"Aww man. If she was called Leia, we could get Luke and make them hug and stuff, and then make them be all 'ew, it turns out you're my brother' 'eww that's so gross' 'maybe shoulda thought of that before you got together.' stuff!" Howard said excitedly.

"Awesome! Get out." Leonard said.

"Wait, wait, wait! I was kidding, I'd never do that. At least not until they were older and able to make their own decisions... Anyway, check it out." Howard took out his phone and showed it to Leonard.

"Breha's hair just got long enough for me to do Princess Leia buns on her." Howard grinned, showing Leonard his screensaver of Breha with a very grumpy face and buns on either side of her head.

"Cool!" Leonard smiled. "So where's Raj?"

"He'll be here in a minute, he has a surprise for everyone." Howard said as the door opened and Raj entered.

"Hey guys, better move over - Raj is here and Raj is sober!" Raj grinned lifting his arms like an Olympic medal-winner.

There was a silence.

"Do you think he knows we're here?" Penny whispered to Bernadette.

"Hey Penny, nice to see you, and Bernadette, what a pleasure!" Raj said, kissing each on the cheek before sitting next to Howard grinning.

"I think he saw us." Bernadette said.

"Erm, Raj, I don't mean to be rude but... are you high right now?" Penny asked.

"Nope. I'm totally clean and it's all thanks to Miranda." Raj said smugly.

"Who's Miranda?" Penny asked as a tall, brunette woman walked into the apartment.

"Wow Raj, you ran up those stairs like REALLY fast, where's the fire?" she suddenly realised everyone was staring at her. "Hi, I'm Miranda. Raj's psychiatrist and girlfriend."

"Well, I hope he's paying you for ALL your services!" Howard sniggerered.

Leonard elbowed Howard and then said: "Well Miranda, it's nice to meet you."

"So, how did you two get together?" Penny asked as Miranda sat on Raj's knee.

"Well, Raj finally decided that it was time to solve his little problem." Miranda smiled, nuzzling Raj's nose.

"So he came to see a psychiatrist, and it became evident straight away that there was going to be a problem since he needed to see a psychiatrist about the fact he couldn't speak to women and I was a woman!" Miranda laughed.

"So, every time he came I gave him a little bit of Malibu so we could discuss his problem. Every time he came, I poured a little less alcohol and a little bit of water to fill the space in his glass. Eventually he was chatting away entirely sober and when I told him, the first thing he did was ask me out! It was hard for him to talk sober at first but now he's pretty much mastered it! That's why he didn't speak to you guys sooner - he wanted to be able to do it completely at ease so he wouldn't stop talking halfway through a sentence or something!" Miranda smiled happily.

The phone rang as the group began to chatter and Miranda handed the gift to Penny.

Leonard answered it, shifting Macy in his arms.

"Hello? It's Sheldon." he whispered and everyone stopped talking to listen to what Leonard was saying.

However, Leonard's face was completely expressionless.

"OK. Bye." Leonard put the phone down, stunned.

"What did he want?" Penny was worried.

"Amy had the baby." Leonard said.

"That's so great! Was it a boy or a girl?" Penny exclaimed.

Leonard looked, unsettled, at Penny.

"It died."

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><p>It was five months since Sheldon and Amy's child had been stillborn and a lot had changed.<p>

This huge emotional blow had changed both would-have-been-parents - in some ways, for the better.

They found it easier to show their emotions.

For three months after his son died, Sheldon Cooper cried.

He cried in front of other people.

His friends.

And he realised just how much harder it would have been if they weren't there beside him.

Amy too, reacted almost the same as Sheldon.

Exactly three months after their sons death, Sheldon turned up at Amy's apartment.

He changed her life with six words.

"We're going to do this properly."

He proposed on the spot.

Not because he had to.

Not because he thought it would be best.

Because he wanted to.

He asked Amy to move in with him, and, exactly seven months after her sons death, Amy Farrah-Fowler fell pregnant again.

She was worried about how this would affect her and Sheldon, living in constant fear of losing this baby too.

Things seemed to get worse when she went to the first scan, alone and still too frightened to tell Sheldon, and discovered that this baby was a boy also.

However, one morning Sheldon heard Amy throwing up.

He recognised straight away that it was morning sickness.

He padded into the bathroom and held his fiancee's hair back.

When she stopped, she sat against the wall, panting.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Sheldon asked.

Amy was never one to beat around th bush.

"It's a boy. This whole thing seems exactly the same as last time. I didn't want you to think that we were replacing the last baby." Amy cried.

Sheldon crouched in front of her and looked her in the eyes.

"Our first baby died before he got a chance to live. This one is different. This is a totally different baby. He isn't going to replace our other child. Our second baby won't change the fact we had a first one. His death won't make us use our second child as a substitute. It'll make us treasure both our babies even more."

Sheldon too sat with his back against the wall.

"I heard people say that when you get married and have kids, you split your love equally between your wife and children. I always thought that meant it was like starting off with 100% love, and dividing it between each person. It's not. I met you, and I poured all my love into you. When our son was born, I didn't take a little love from you and give it to him. I somehow found even more love in my heart and it went to him. And it'll be the same with the new baby - I won't take the love off our old baby and give it to the new one. I'll look at his face and find that I haven't given away quite all my love just yet."

They were silent for a moment.

"Sheldon?"

"Yes Amy?"

"Our son, our first one. He died before we could name him. His grave just says Baby Cooper, but I think I've thought of a name now. I think we should get a new gravestone with this name on it."

"What is it?"

"Sheldon Junior." Amy smiled as his hand found hers.

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><p>Sheldon and Amy sat on the hospital bed, their newborn son spread across their laps like the most beautiful treasure.<p>

Both parents couldn't stop smiling.

Wedding rings on their fingers shone in the light - gold and silver, like the Sun and the Moon.

"Sheldon?"

"Yes Amy?"

"I'm not going back to work."

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><p>"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday Luke and Breha! Happy birthday to you!" everyone sang as the twins, now three blew out the candles on their cake.<p>

"Hey, wouldn't it be awesome if you threw them up in the air and they turned into kids, like they do in The Sims?" Howard asked Leonard.

When Leonard didn't answer, Howard tossed Breha into the air and then scrutinized her giggling face.

"Nope." he said when nothing happened, and he set the wriggling toddler down so she could run off and play with her presents.

Bernadette was chatting to Penny, Amy and Miranda, not noticing that Luke had managed to wriggle his way upside down in her arms.

"I better get Luke off Bernie before he falls again. Last time he got a concussion and couldn't eat solid food for a week. Do you know how hard it is to blend brisket?" he rushed off to prevent a casualty.

Raj went to stand with Miranda, putting an arm around her shoulders and a hand on her protruding belly.

Amy too was pregnant again, her stomach huge as it always seemed to get in her pregnancies.

Penny was holding Marshall, their one year old son who had inherited Leonard's black curly hair but his mothers olive green eyes.

Leonard was holding Macy, a miniature Penny in every way - her blonde hair, olive gree eyes and perfect features made her almost eerily beautiful, but she was showing incredible growth, having learnt to speak, walk and figure out toys and games at an early age.

Sheldon carried his now one year old son over.

Sheldon had named his son, he had told them, after a great man who had helped him see that no matter what, friends can get you through the darkest of times and, when times get so dark you can't even see, they'll be there to turn on the light.

He had named his son Leonard.

"Hey." Leonard greeted Sheldon.

Due to both of Leonard II's parents having little interest in fashion, Sheldon had simply gone out one day and bought an entire copy of all the clothes in his wardrobe in baby size - as a result, father and son were wearing identical Green Lantern t-shirts, plaid shorts and identical brown trainers.

"Leonard. It's time to stop pretending." Sheldon said.

"What?" Leonard replied.

"Come on. None of this is real. Well, some of it is. Howard and Bernadette are togther and they have two children, Luke and Breha, who are three years old, and they only called their daughter Breha because you had dibs on Leia. Raj is married to Miranda, who is pregnant. Amy and I lost our first son, and Leonard here is our second. Amy is pregnant again. That's all true, but Penny, Macy, Marshall... they're not."

"What are you saying?"

"Wake up Leonard. It's time to stop pretending.

* * *

><p>Leonard took a swig from his glass of Scotch.<p>

It was almost dark as he sat on the couch in the empty and silent living room.

He picked up the picture of Penny, grinning and pointing at her t-shirt which had an arrow pointing at her belly and the words "Bun in the oven" on her chest.

It was a picture he'd taken the day she'd run out of ice cream.

The day he'd been too busy setting up the crib to go himself.

The day Penny was excatly nine months pregnant.

The day she got in the car and drove to the store.

The day she was too pregnant to be driving at all.

The day a truck crashed headlong into her car.

The day she died.

Sobs racked Leonard's body as he held the picture to his heart.

_"Our children will be smart and beautiful!"_

_"Not to mention imaginary."_

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><p><strong>In case you didn't get it, most of the story was Leonard imagining his life as it would have been if Penny hadn't died in a car crash while pregnant with their first and therefore only child. The last paragraph is real life, present day Leonard, coming out of his fantasy world in which they are both alive.<strong>

**Mrs Doctor Who 11 xx**


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